Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday December 31, 2010 @03:25AM
from the more-than-he-could-chew dept.

wiredmikey writes "The FBI reported this week that Qiang 'Michael' Bi, of Powell, Ohio was sentenced to 30 months in prison for selling more than 35,000 illegally copied computer games over the Internet between 2005 and 2009. According to a statement of facts read during Bi's plea hearing, agents executed a search warrant at Bi's house and found multiple CD duplicators and more than 1,000 printed counterfeit CDs. Some of the CDs were still in the duplicator. During their investigation, agents learned that Bi would buy a single copy of a game, illegally duplicate it and sell the copies on eBay.com and Amazon.com. He also set up a website for customers to download the games they bought. Bi accepted payment through eBay and PayPal accounts in his name and in others' names."

It still blows my mind that people can be capable enough to run a little outfit like this, and yet be so amazingly dumb. You know you're going to get caught when you sell this stuff from the US, under your own name, on big name websites.

On another note, cancel the bank, I'll make a religion. Much easier to start and all you need is some gullible idiots. Even given the competition in the market for gullible fools, there's certainly still a vast unharvested field.

Somehow less than the penalty for "making available" 24 songs. The moral of the story: If you're going to commit a crime, commit the biggest crime you possibly can!

The problem is that the law ask for the number of copyrighted items that were copied, not for the value of those items, and not for the number of copies made. Psystar who was convicted for making about 750 illegal copies of MacOS X was convicted for copying _one_ copyrighted work, 1/24th of Jammi whatshername. The number of copies is only relevant if the copyright owner goes for actual damages. Let's say if a record company sold a million copies of a CD without having the copyright. So to compare the cases,

Thomas-Rasset got what she asked for. She was sharing a couple thousands songs in reality, although they only sued over 24 of them. They offered to settle for a few thousand dollars, which is a pretty fair price considering the number she was actually sharing. However, she decided to reject that and go to trial, even though she had not even a remote chance of winning (hell, she couldn't even hope for jury nullification, since it is a civil case and a nullification would just be overturned on appeal). The minimum statutory damage award is $750 per infringed work, or $18000 in this case. If, somehow, the court decided that she was an innocent infringer (basically someone who had no reason to believe they were infringing copyright), that can be cut down to $200 per work, or $4800 in this case. There's pretty much no chance of that, so realistically she was looking at a minimum of $18000.

So, the best case she was looking at by going to trial was 3-4 times worse than settling, and that depending on the jury feeling sufficiently sympathetic to go as low as they could on the damages. And then she was pretty blatant about lying in court, she tried to blame her kids, and it came out that she tried to destroy evidence. So much for any chance of the jury being sympathetic...

There's pretty much no chance of that, so realistically she was looking at a minimum of $18000.

I'm not sure I agree with your logic, but I don't care to argue with you, so I'll concede everything you said and instead point this out: Even $18000 is arguably ridiculous, but do you think there'd be as much of an outcry if it was $18000 and not >$1M?

Like you say, the deck is wildly stacked against her when it goes to court and she's pretty much been on her worst behavior inside and outside of court. But even if you came into court accused of theft and said "If I want something I just take it so fuck you all" and gave the jury the finger there'd be limits. Thomas-Rasset has shown that for copyright infringement there's practically no limit, they can just pick a penalty far beyond the life earnings of most people for being a minor non-commercial file sha

Come on. Any of the settlements offered to Thomas-Rasset are outrageous, at different levels of outrageous.

They are all so far from fair that I just can't imagine that you genuinely believe that "a few thousand dollars" be "a pretty fair price". I must assume that you are a RIAA shill.

She was sharing nearly 2000 tracks. If she had bought instead of pirating, that would have been nearly $2k at the usual $1/track price, just to have the songs for her personal use. In addition she had them shared. I think that makes another couple of bucks per track reasonable. That brings us to about what the settlement offer was before the trial.

What would you consider to be a fair settlement for nearly 2000 songs? Remember to take into account that they weren't just downloaded for personal use--they were

I tell you what, if the entitlement crowd, a group of people distinguished by the fact that they refuse to do any work but want rewards anyway, manages to get up off their asses and actually start a revolution, I'll join in sheer amazement. I suspect, however, that it might be a little too difficult and you'll all just call for the rest of us to do it for you while you try to benefit for free.

Agreed. The sense of entitlement to ownership of ideas and their expressions, especially when most of the work going into every example of either is the result of millennia of cultural and technological development, is laughable.

"It's mine I thought of it first!" is intellectually dishonest and pathetic beyond kindergarten.

So this guy gets 30 months for physically duplicating AND SELLING stuff, while Jammie Thomas et al get smacked with million-dollar fines for downloading a few handfuls of unpaid tunes for their own personal enjoyment? Maybe THIS guy should be the one getting smacked with million-dollar fines, considering he might have made millions from what he was doing.

Good point, but it's still grossly out of proportion, considering 35'000 games cost a lot more than 24 songs.

Yea, but remember, when someone pirates something that doesn't mean they would have bought it had it not been available to download....oh wait, I just proved your point even more....

People who are SELLING counterfeit copies of games should be fined as it IS theft. The buyers actually traded dollars for the games (albeit at lower prices). Why the justice system wants to punish little old ladies for

So this guy gets 30 months for physically duplicating AND SELLING stuff, while Jammie Thomas et al get smacked with million-dollar fines for downloading a few handfuls of unpaid tunes for their own personal enjoyment? Maybe THIS guy should be the one getting smacked with million-dollar fines, considering he might have made millions from what he was doing.

Thomas has had multiple opportunities to settle for much less, some as low as around a couple thousand dollars (which would have been a pretty fair amount, considering that had in fact downloaded and was sharing a couple thousand songs, not a mere "few handfuls"). She had such opportunities before the first trial, and after each trial.

Thomas also lied under oath, tried to frame her children, and was caught trying to destroy evidence. Those things make the jury unsympathetic, and such damages are determined

New monitoring software at Nationwide Insurance spelled the beginning of the end for an employee who had been counterfeiting and selling computer games for five years.
The software alerted Nationwide officials to a spreadsheet that Qiang "Michael" Bi had sent from his personal e-mail account to his Nationwide e-mail account. The spreadsheet listed eBay accounts, credit-card numbers and false identity information that Bi used in a lucrative counterfeiting scheme.

The spreadsheet listed more than 50 eBay and PayPal accounts, all with different names. Bi told investigators he used other people's information on the accounts because eBay and PayPal had suspended his accounts and do not allow a new account with the same name and address as a suspended account.

It's just a false flag issue to get people on side with ACTA. Now everytime you see a big bust they wont use the word piracy, they'll use counterfeiting. Yeah we caught this guy counterfeiting 1000's of songs on the internets clogging up the tubes.

I wouldn't be surprised if this guy was a plant by the MAFIAA or something.

How in hell would the copier be 'held accountable' if no crime is committed? Goody two-shoes feelings? No, that's why he ripped off the authors in the first place, no goody feelings. He must be forced.

It should go on his record? Yep, he did the crime. Jail time? Note to you: all crimes do not result in jail time.

I can live another day knowing that less potential profit is being stolen (which is totally possible even though it doesn't even exist in the hands of the copyright holder anyway). It's really nice to see that petty things that should be up to the copyright holder to attempt to stop are being handled by the police (who don't have anything better to do).

Setting aside the possible sleaziness of this particular guy; seen from another perspective it's pretty fantastic how much resources and time we waste on seeking out and punishing people for reorganizing a tiny bunch of molecules on worthless pieces of plastic.

I don't see how it's a waste of time to prevent the theft of potential profit (it's theft even though the copyright holder never had the money in their possession anyway). I just hope they ban competition, the act of a consumer to choose not to buy something, and negative user reviews soon. That way, potential future gain could no longer be stolen!

(it's theft even though the copyright holder never had the money in their possession anyway)

you assert this boldly, but it's really an ongoing debate. I didn't want to start this argument though, so let me apologize for using the word "waste" and say that I would rather have written "extend". My meaning was to say that when I take a few steps back and look at it all, it seems kind of weird. With most other crimes there are quite straightforward justifications for what we have the justice system occupied with doing, but with copyright it becomes a bit of an ant hive. Just a feeling, I'm not saying

When a thief takes a good from the store, the good is no longer there. I could understand people who don't understand what the act of copyright infringement actually involves not knowing the difference, but someone browsing this website (multiple people, no less)? Come on. It's simply not the same thing. The thief is accused of taking the good, not money that never existed in the first place.

He was not a petty guy just making some copies for his friends etc.So yeah, seriously, don't try and compare this guy to any fair use idea whatsoever, it's just going to hurt the whole fair use argument if you use him as an example.

It's guys like this that make it hard for the rest of us who just want to backup a game or install on another PC.

This also should go a long way for those caught by the MPAA or the RIAA, surely selling something for profit that is copy righted is worse than giving it away for free right? Seriously you are talking about someone that made nearly $1 million from pirated copies and all he got was 30 months, probably half of which will be suspended.

Yet someone caught trading songs has their life utterly destroyed to the tune of $30k per song shared.

surely selling something for profit that is copy righted is worse than giving it away for free right

Well it depends. The argument often used on/. to justify piracy is that it's just natural for information to be copied etc, and it's a basic human right to do so, and authors should seek other revenue models and so on. In which case it really shouldn't be any different regardless of whether he made money on it or not. So long as he didn't claim to be the author of the works he copied, and didn't defraud his customers by claiming that the copies are legal, the "information wants to be free" argument should

I'm a bit puzzled at the Editor's choice of a word - I'm sure that if I bought and played the game, it would work in the same way as the 'real' one - and the game was ~copied~, not 'created to resemble' as the word counterfeit implies. Yet I do understand that many are tiring of the word 'pirate'...

Interestingly enough "bi" (sounds like "bee") is Mandarin Chinese for a particular part of female reproductive anatomy, which is frequently used as a pejorative. In fact, following an adjective like "sha" (stupid), "zhuang" (pretentious) or "ma" (mother's) it is the bread and butter the Chinese swearing vocabulary. “Qiang Bi" would translate to “tough c---", which would be an asset in prison.

Funnily enough, the Chinese military has been accused of running facilities for massive duplication of the bootleg CDs and DVDs you find all over China. If they'd kill this guy, it could only be because they don't like competition.

are you aware that, what you sample above, is not even a tiny dot on a fly that lands on a huge pile of bullcrap, compared to what is happening in usa-mexico drug lane ? are you aware that, the drug cartels just next to your mexican border, are now equipped with SO expensive weapons that, their average equipment level is more than the average equipment of an u.s. army front line soldier ? do you think that is possible with just running a few hidden stashes of drugs to and fro from the border ?

tl;dr, but from the first couple sentences you seem like a complete lunatic, and from the lack of capitalization and the poor punctuation it seems unlikely that you're capable of making an intelligent point. Sorry to have bothered you.

In 1989, the United States invaded Panama as part of Operation Just Cause, which involved 25,000 American troops. Gen. Manuel Noriega, head of government of Panama, had been giving military assistance to Contra groups in Nicaragua at the request of the U.S.—which, in exchange, allowed him to continue his drug-trafficking activities—which they had known about since the 1960s.[12][13] When the DEA tried to indict Noriega in 1971, the CIA prevented them from doing so.[12] The CIA, which was then directed by future president George H. W. Bush, provided Noriega with hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as payment for his work in Latin America.[12] However, when CIA pilot Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua by the Sandinistas, documents aboard the plane revealed many of the CIA's activities in Latin America, and the CIA's connections with Noriega became a public relations "liability" for the U.S. government, which finally allowed the DEA to indict him for drug trafficking, after decades of allowing his drug operations to proceed unchecked.[12] Operation Just Cause, whose ostensible purpose was to capture Noriega, killed numerous Panamanian civilians, but was successful in removing Noriega. The operation pushed Noriega back into the town asylum along with Papal Nuncio where he surrendered to U.S. authorities. His trial took place in Miami, where he was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Whatever your opinion on copyright law, you've got to admit that copying another person's work and SELLING IT without them getting a cut is a dick move and shouldn't be tolerated.

It is a dick move only because Western European society in the early modern era starting seeing it as a dick move. In Ancient Rome, an audience member would transcribe a poet's recital, have dozens of copies made by amanuenses, and then sold in the marketplace with no money going back to the poet. There's not a single instance of anyone complaining. Martial lampooned a guy who would put his own name on these copies, but plagiarism is distinct from mere copying. There continue to be cultures all over the world to this day where people don't understand copyright at all. Try explaining it to them, and they'll think you're a lunatic. If successive generations see increasingly less value in copyright, we're only returning to a state before what would see a freakish aberration of several hundred years.

Yes, various cultures have also believed it was noble to own slaves or perform human sacrifice. But I think that the nature of this issue, whether respecting copyright is objectively moral or a mere government fiat with the hope of encouraging production*, ought to be carefully examined instead of simply assuming without question that copyright must exist.

(This, incidentally, was the view of the American Founding Fathers. They had an acute sense of natural rights -- endowed by the Creator and only recognized by the government -- but did not consider copyright among them.)

Copyright is a societal construction. It doesn't matter what other societies do. We, as a group of people, in this society have all decided to agree that copying other people's work without their permission is a dick move. That people in China don't feel that way is immaterial to me. I don't want to live in China. Now, you may say that those other countries have saner laws. But I know that the vast majority of those countries have nowhere near the entertainment industry that we do.

They had an acute sense of natural rights -- endowed by the Creator and only recognized by the government -- but did not consider copyright among them.

But they did consider not being ripped off by your government or your fellow citizens to be a right (they were most eloquent about the rights to one's property and works - just read the mountains of papers, letters, and other supporting documents produced by those wise fellows). What they didn't like was having to operate a press under the authority of the

(This, incidentally, was the view of the American Founding Fathers. They had an acute sense of natural rights -- endowed by the Creator and only recognized by the government -- but did not consider copyright among them.)

This is an outright falsification, sir. They very well did believe in copyright because they put it in Article I of the Constitution:

"...to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings

I think GP means that the Founding Fathers did not consider copyright to be a natural right. Hence why that particular phrase that you've cited is worded the way it is - note that it is not the statement of fact, but is given a rationale as to why it is there ("to promote the progress"). So it's not a fundamental right of the author, but rather a (supposedly) mutually beneficial arrangement to promote the interests of society as a whole.

While I have sympathy towards your view points (well, some of them, anyway), you should try conveying them in a language that is more polite, or at least less aggressive and insulting. Regardless of the substance of the message, it will be seen as trolling if the tone is like that.

unfortunately it doesnt matter how you convey it. regardless of your language, you will see that if anything you put forth is not compatible with any certain radical party's views (regardless of what the party is), you get trollmodded or reacted in harsh words. out of the blue. this has been such in my experience in the last 1 to 1.5 months. i tried varying approaches to tone and manner, substance and language, yet result is the same.

no surprise though. it is no different in real life. regardless of how

its because you american right wingers are bigoted psychopaths who cant face truth. when you check my comments, moron, you will notice that all of them had been chain downmodded even if they were giving out FACTUAL information with links and references of information to the wrongdoings of united states, from united states government ITSELF.

bottom line is, you morons cant face the truth. its too much. here, again :

Governments multi-task - a concept that also seems strangely foreign to the geek.

Well said.

Why is it anything accomplished by government is always a waste of time and money just because something else (speakers pet project) is not accomplished first?

Its a hell of a lot easier and less expensive to take down a disk duplicator when the aggrieved copyright holder calls you up and tells you exactly where the disks are coming from and files an official complaint, than it is to invade yet another country to get Osama.

Who would want a government capable of solving all problems simultaneously a

Who would want a government capable of solving all problems simultaneously and in the right sequence to satisfy every citizens priorities.

Apparently "god" does it in "heaven". Which is one of the reasons I don't accept such stories; I find it difficult to believe that even an omnipotent being would simultaneously be able to please a group of democrats and a group of republicans. Needless to say, I expect even less from a human government.

Taking millions of slashdotters, rolling them into one ponderous abstraction and then putting words in their mouth... that just never grows old for you, does it?

Slashdot provides the stories its audience wants. The site does survive on ad revenue, after all; you want to keep telling people what they hear. The continual stream of positive stories about filesharing that Slashdot has posted over my decade on the site suggest that a large enough percentage of readers enjoy trading music, films and ebooks that

The continual stream of positive stories about filesharing that Slashdot has posted over my decade on the site suggest that a large enough percentage of readers enjoy trading music, films and ebooks that a generalization like "You Slashdotters..." is understandable.

Well, if we discount the prominent and vocal pro-rightsholder contingent, maybe. But yeah, it's understandable, if just a little lazy, and I'm sure we all do it from time to time.

Arguably, Slashdot provides stories that generate most page views (and therefore ad views). And the best way to do so is to bring up subjects on which there is no universal agreement in the audience, but rather two or more opposing sides that are nigh impossible to reconcile. That way you get a massive flamewar in the comments (especially when TFS has flamebaiting clues already, though in practice you can always rely on Slashdotters for some decent flamebaits even in the absence of any invitation), and that

Hahaha, you'd like to think that, wouldn't you? There's so much meth being produced in California you'd think it was our primary export. I live in a town where a lot of it is produced. They expend absolutely zero effort on tracking them down and busting them because it's easier and cheaper to catch pot growers and there is less risk of being shot at; even the Mexican gang members tend to just fade away into the woods.

A buddy of mine who currently lives in Sacramento told me about a nature walk he took while in in elementary school in California:

These trees have been here for hundreds of years... and that's a meth shack, over there... if you look to your left, you can see a stream that runs off from a nearby natural spring... and there's another meth shack...